Signing on and Silent Suppers

Just finishing up from what I thought was a very ravishing dinner with Lilsister, Papabear and Mammy, but which I fear was not appreciated by our deranged parents.

Papabear in full New Year’s resolution mode (well it is February) has decided to quit smoking, and finds himself hungry almost most of the time he is awake, currently running at a good six hours per day.  This meant that as Lilsister’s shepherd’s pie was fizzling away in the oven, next to my own amazing garlic bread rolls, Papabear sat at the table, with a napkin, cutlery, cup of tea, bread roll (as he hates anything garlic-related) and a jam doughnut, naturally, until the food was eventually slopped up on a plate to him, by a strangely silent Mammy.  Dinner was short and quiet with only the gnashing of teeth from Lilsister and desperate protestations from myself about how nobody was thanking anybody for handing them their dinner.  It was painful, yet delicious in a piercingly horrific way.

The point of the shepherd’s pie was to eat something comforting after our awful time down at the social welfare office, where we stood in line and Lilsister got yelled at by the gargoyle at the hatch for not putting her mark in the correct corner of the greasy paper which holds so much power.  Afterwards, being gluttons for punishment, we decided to go and register at the state employment agency, which costs our IMF-indebted government a billion euro a year to run.  I could say function, but I never lie.

Moving away from the porn he was navigating on his computer screen, the extremely skinny bloke behind the counter (who never rose from his seat to address us) told us that to register for a course, you had to register, which we advised him we were here to do.  Oh no he said, you can’t just come in and register.  We only take registrations from 9.30-1.30 Monday to Thursday, and you usually have to queue two and a half hours to do even that.  And every day we close the doors at 1.30 and there are people still waiting, we send them away.  We are public servants after all (okay I included that bit myself but it isn’t a lie).  We turn away on average twenty people a day, he said.  I then asked him about courses and he said there were waiting lists for ”many, many months” for the majority of them.  These courses are just fabulous – if you go on them, then your details are removed from the live register, which is the amount of people out of work in Ireland.  This means that the unemployment figures reported in Ireland at any one time are completely false, as they do not include all those people on the ”Jobs Club” course (where you work at a computer on your CV and discuss interview techniques in a room with other unemployed hopefuls – for 11 weeks); the ”Receptionist Skills” course (eh – switch skills?  For a whopping EIGHTEEN weeks) and other such useless, pointless entities which fudge the figures we present to our European bosses when we put our hands out for more bailout money.  I then asked about internships, as I had spotted a really good one that required journalistic ability and was working (for free mind) with a government agency doing interviews, press releases etc.  NO, I was told quite clearly by Starvingpornman, you must be unemployed for LONGER to even apply for an internship where you work full time hours doing the same work as everybody else, but for free, and while you’re there we take YOUR details off the live register and don’t report on the fact that you are still unemployed, just whoring your skills out for nowt.  I asked was there any way around this and was given a repeated loud NO.

In essence, you must queue to register to queue to do courses with our state employment agency, which costs a billion a year to run, but which cannot see individuals after 1.30pm four days a week, lest lunchbreaks be interrupted.

Just to put the cherry on the cake, we popped along to our post office to collect our dole payment which, for anybody unemployed out there knows, is FUCKED at you through the window by the haggard and horrible post office mistresses, with a snarl and no word of a thanks for keeping post offices open, which only serve to hand people dole payments these days.

So!  To summarise:

There are no jobs in Ireland.

The state employment agency has no jobs, just courses, which have many months waiting lists, and the waiting lists themselves have waiting lists.

These courses may not lead to jobs.

The bitches at the post office can get off their fat arses and thank us for paying their pensions in the first place, and get over the fact that people are not on the dole because they love it, but because they were made redundant by companies who could claim 66% of the redundancy they paid you back from the government.  Why pay wages when you can get away with that?

Our parents are ungrateful, and depressing.

But cynicism and hatefulness, you will not have me!!!  I will NOT let you get the better of me!!!

Having said that, it may be time to pop a few headache tablets.

 

 

 

When Mince is a Lie

It might be New Year’s Day and I might be watching the nine o clock news on our ever-pointless national television station (which opened with the newsreader declaring ”happy new year to you” and then proceeded to list all the new charges and bills coming into effect from today – thanks lads, and happy new year’s back, you depressing cretins, cause that’s exactly what we in Ireland need right now, a list of MORE things we can’t afford, after a fake greeting wishing us nothing but more bad news so you PRICKS can have something to report on so we have something to CRY ABOUT and then you can be happy you ARSEHOLES) – BUT there are more pressing issues at hand that don’t include the fact it’s 2012.

By the way, whilst watching the above I sunk into a mini depression and have now flicked over to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as reality and my hangover hurt too much.

Anyway, I have discovered, after a night spent yapping to Smashers whilst staying in her apartment, that there is NO MINCE IN MINCE PIES.  Never knew this – having always assumed the word ”mince” alluded to, you know, MINCE, or meat of some kind, and it’s an English dessert thing, and they have a thing about meat pies, as do the Australians, who just want to be British anyway (they don’t know it but they do, no matter how American their cities seem).

Smashers was telling me how she was forced at a Christmas family gathering to try a mince pie, after refusing to eat one all her life, because she didn’t like the idea of eating, you, know, MINCE, like, in a PIE.  Anyway she was peer pressured into eating one and discovered that mince means some sort of fruit mash type thing, and it wasn’t as vomit inducing as she had thought.  She asked me did I realise mince pies didn’t have meat and I said no, and we discussed this alongside our usual deep and meaningful stuff, so it’s not like we’re boring or anything.

Should also mention here that after I had gone to bed, I had a VERY sleepless night imagining Smashers was standing at the end of my bed like yer woman from Paranormal Activity, of which myself and Lilsister saw with Firstbrother and Preggers in their apartment (Part 3 this time) and which stressed us out immensly.  But that is a separate issue.

Mentioned the mince pie thing to Lilsister who finds it hilarious that somebody would think mince pies contain meat and despite my perfectly valid arguments that these are an English tradition, and they eat lots of meat pies etc, she is using this as an excuse to slag off and generally belittle me, which is getting quite annoying.  She also can’t believe Smashers thought the same thing, which I think only confirms what I said.

She’s nine years younger, which makes her a total twat anyways, that’s what I think.

Bubbles

You know it’s Chrismtas Eve and the start of the ”festive” season when you wake to the sounds of your parents killing each other in the kitchen downstairs.  Ho ho ho.  To the day I die, and it could be soon by excessive gin inhallation, I will never forgive ExHimself for putting me in the position where I’ve had to move back in with the EEJITS that are my parents.  May my visit be short, and quiet.  Amen.

I put on the radio to drown out the evil vibes and Michael Buble was on groaning about coming home.  This didn’t help.

Envisaged today’s arguement whilst contemplating Mr Buble’s stellar career on smoochy ballads.  Mammy would have gotten up early, even though she doesn’t need to leave the house till 9am.  This ensures maximum time to sit and bull about how difficult Christmas is.  Papabear, who after 39 years of marriage should really know better, would have gotten up, rolled downstairs and asked Mammy to make him breakfast.  Cue usual killings about laziness of Papabear, followed by cooking of his breakfast.  I have told Papabear several times since getting off the plane that daily food arguments could be cancelled if he just poured oil and sausages into a pan and ate the results.  But noooooo he and she have to have their daily dance around the madpole.

Mammy left at 9 for hairdressers, in a haze of sighs and coughs, which I pretended not to hear by turning the radio up louder.  I let Mr Buble go home and rolled the dial over to Spin instead, not my favourite station in the world but it plays a lot of ”unce unce unce unce” style ”dance” music and is therefore louder than most of the ”classic” hits being provided by our more mainstream stations.  Did the trick anyways, and I dozed off to the tender sounds of some twat shrieking about how his ladeee had it awl and didn’t need none of his dollaz, man.  Sweet, sweet snoozing.

Party last night went grand, I had gin and beer beforehand and gin and tea after I got there, and some fine food – Panties knows how to put on an excellent spread.  Some bad moments when there was an indepth discussion between the mammies of what essentials to pack for hospital trip when one is birthing, which myself and Panties did not enjoy but luckily Rocky Five came on and we concentrated on that until we could tell our story about the time we babysat for a couple on New Year’s Eve and they had sex all night on the stairs when they came home, which was terrifying for us as we were in a bedroom in a single bed with no door, just a curtain, and we were afraid they would come in and eat us, and the woman was screaming her head off and ended up wailing for Satan to put his ”evil in her”.  Terrible, terrible night, but a lovely story to shut up the maternity talk with.

Bad news indeed on Thursday as when Lilsister came to collect me she was in floods of tears – her job of five years waited till she went back to work (ill, I might add, she’d been out the two days before dying with Mammy’s disgusting cough and only went in cause she had so much work to do) to tell her that she was now redundant and could she please go away.  Not sure what’s going on, she is a credit controller for a company that really needs control over it’s credit but anyways it’s happened and there’s not a lot we can do about it.  She said her co-worker had been made redundant about five minutes before (by the way, for the second time with that company – supposedly the co-worker was in the toilet, came out, boss waiting for her, and she said ”please don’t do this to me again” at which point they actually did).  Lilsister had been upset by this news, then was called in herself, to the company owner, his wife, and her boss, who delivered the reasons and the news itself.  She said she has no idea what was said, all she remembers is the owner, who seemed quite upset himself, holding her hand, and her wishing he would not do that, as she was now crying large rivers of snot, and bubbles had started to come out of her nose, and she needed her hand to wipe them away.  The owner’s wife requested that somebody get tissues which just means they all saw the bubbles and were probably horrified.  I told her when I was made redundant they at least had the decency to have a glass of water and a BOX of tissues on the desk in preparation.  I didn’t cry, but I was annoyed as it was done in the boardroom and I knew that the managers hid the kit kats in the press at the back and hadn’t thought that chocolate might be a comfort.

Luckily myself and Papabear were at home at the time, so after the purchase of chips and the making of tea she calmed somewhat, and we discussed our lack of futures and how the hell Ireland is supposed to pull itself up out of all this.

Our immediate answer is to pile me, Lilsister, Papabear and Babybro, all of whom have now been made redundant, into Lilsister’s Toyota Yaris and hit the streets in a sort of unemployment roadshow, begging for work.  We shall start at the industrial estates, knocking on doors, leaving Papabear and Babybro right at the gate, as we believe we should be the interested looking faces of our project.  Papabear has given up ever working again and Babybro has been unemployed for so long we are worried for his health.  Another option is to bring our niece, Babybro’s beautiful daughter, N, along for the sympathy vote ie if we don’t work she doesn’t eat etc or just general cuteness – some manager may see her and go ”ahhhh” whilst we sneak by and steal jobs, or petty cash as we can’t afford the petrol.

Until then we will muddle through Christmas, Lilsister and I shall be tucked up in bed together tonight, watching the very Christmassy Paranormal Activity 2, as we saw the first one together a few weeks ago, on the sofa, holding hands, and behind cushions, and loved it.  I have to say though my hand had nail marks in it from last time, Lilsister must have been tense, so perhaps we’ll sit apart tonight.  Then it’s up at 6 or 7 to open presents – a lot less this year – and begin a day of eating, drinking and avoiding Mammy’s cough.

To Ghosts at Christmas!